List of words with “ o' ” in it

Question

I searched google, but I do not know what words like "one o'clock", "jack o'lantern", "lily o'the valley" are called.

Does any list exist? The motivation is just out of curiosity. (Reading a lot of Dickens which made me wonder about it.)

Thank you for the answer and time.

tchrist · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-09 22:45:35Z

up vote 2 down vote accepted

These are called contractions. Others include:

This is not a closed set. People make them at the drop o’ their hat.

answered Oct 9 '15 at 22:45

tchrist♦

108k28290463

There are also thousands of Irish surnames like this. – James Oct 9 '15 at 22:47
That's an impressive list. Where did you find them? – chasly from UK Oct 9 '15 at 22:53
Thank you so much! That was fast. As chasly asked, do you have a link for a complete list? – Zeeshan Mahmud Oct 9 '15 at 22:54
@chaslyfromUK Perl magic: I merely grepped the OED for \bo'. If you don't restrict it to word boundaries with \b then you get answers that included things like po’boy, which is a type of sandwich, or St Elmo’s fire, which is a will-o’-the-wisp. – tchrist♦ Oct 9 '15 at 23:02
Do you have to have a subscription for the OED? Where's the machine-readable text? – chasly from UK Oct 9 '15 at 23:10

add a comment |

1 Answer 1